Originally Posted by
orbitmic
I meant that privately, they will admit to all this being a cost reducing exercise but indeed, it never features in their communication (although in fairness, I don't think other airlines do it either) and indeed, they always try to frame everything in the "improvement" language
Indeed and I do not think that this is limited to airlines but could equally apply to all sorts of retail industries.
Given the generality of the practice, I suspect that this must be what they teach in marketing classes; any change, however detrimental, must be presented as positive in consumer communications. The spectre of "doing a Ratner" must loom large, with a fear of antagonising customers if you do not present your products as always being the best thing since sliced bread and new versions always an improvement on the former.
Modern commercial communications only have a rather distant relation with truthfulness: not total strangers but more in the second-cousin-twice-removed degree of proximity than parents, sons and daughters or siblings.